Weekend 3: May 26-28, 2017
This weekend was a huge Abenteuer for @drscottclemson... because he left on Friday morning to fly to San Diego for ICA (International Communication Association conference). He was there Saturday all day, then flew back on Sunday/Monday. Needless to say... by the time he got back, he was fried.
Friday morning we had class (back in the classroom at Aletto, our hotel we stayed in last year! Ah, memories....) - we had a discussion about PR ethics & dialogic communication in PR, then the students had time to work on their final projects. I took the video team ( @blaineeads, @sam-rochford, @marleygoestogermany, and @izzybelledavis ) to Neuersee (new lake) in the Tiergarten so that they could see it as a potential place for shooting spotlight videos.
Blaine & DT checking out the petting zoo from the park overlook
Video team preparing to shoot Izzy’s spotlight video
The rest of the class stayed back at Aletto to get work done and prep their projects. Friday afternoon was free for travel and work, so we sent the students off to their respective planned & unplanned Abenteuer(s) .
Friday afternoon we reached out to see if the students wanted to go check out KaDeWe (http://www.kadewe.de/) - the biggest, fanciest store I think I’ve ever been in. It’s got 7 floors, and from bottom to top you’ve got luxury goods (perfume, makeup, etc), Men’s clothes, women’s clothes, entertainment, yummy nibbles (everything from food kiosks to tea/beer/wine/tobacco/chocolate kiosks to...... bakeries. So many bakeries). None of the students decided to go, so @liketheoceannotthetree and I went and wandered through the store, then we got yummy baked goods at one of the bakeries.
Saw this and thought “H would love that!!” - but it’s 2000 euros. So DT took a photo with it.
Bee sting cake! (Bienenstich) - it’s sponge cake, custard, more sponge cake, then topped with an almond/honey praline.... it was one of the most delicious things I’ve had. I’m thinking about going back for another piece.
At KaDeWe you can get Skippy & Jif! Every American student’s dream.
Thinking about #GBBO, @smpyle! Sachertorte here and Prinsesstårta below!
Saturday was mostly a work day for me. Took a jaunt around Tiergarten with Sarah in the afternoon for some fresh air, but then came back to get more work done while she continued on for more exploring.
Getting ahead of myself - went to a church service at Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church on Sunday evening. It was beautiful. Also, I was lost much of the time - all in German. But still a neat experience. Oh - the church pictured here is the ruin of the old church and is a memorial now, the new church is beside it... I didn’t capture a photo of it. See the it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Wilhelm_Memorial_Church
Oh, and there was a Lamborghini. NBD. I think I saw six this weekend. It was a pretty weekend for driving your ultra luxurious sports car around, I guess.
Sunday I went in the morning and rented a bike so that Luke and I could take a cycling tour around Berlin. It was a gorgeous day for it! Fortunately I had remembered to get sunscreen the day before.... because otherwise I’d have been red as a ripe tomato. We met in Potzdamer Platz, then rode through the city to Badeschiff, a manmade beach area on the edge of the Spree (river that goes through the middle of Berlin) with a swimming pool submerged in the river (not river water, normal pool that just happens to be submerged in the river).
Construction near the MB Arena and East Side Gallery, bonkers how many cranes there are over here.
Duck-face selfie in front of the massive blue Badeschiff duck. I know, it’s epic.
Oh, and then we went past the Bald Eagle enclosure at the zoo on our way back to Europa Center to get lunch and drop off my rental bike.
As I mentioned above, in the evening I went to a service at the Gedächtniskirche (memorial church). This is the 500th anniversary of the start of the Reformation - Luther and his 95 theses and all that - so the topic of the service was about Luther and some of his contemporaries and lessons we can learn for today. It really was neat to be in a service there, but I think for our final Sunday I’ll go back to the International church I attended our first weekend in Berlin.
Monday begins our final week! We’ll get a tour of Olympia Stadion on Monday, the Autostadt on Tuesday, Teufelsberg on Wednesday, and the Communication Museum on Thursday. Thursday morning the students will present their final projects in my class. Friday-Sunday afternoon are free for the students (we’ll be grading frantically), and Sunday evening is our farewell dinner. And like that, it’s all over and we’re headed home. How quickly the time does pass.